10 Famous Travel Books of Literature

Traveling, that great passion. We can't wait for the holidays to arrive to grab the suitcase and go to that dream place to escape and recover energy. But, although it seems that the trip is part of our era of globalization, nothing could be further from the truth. People have traveled since human beings existed, and not always out of necessity or obligation, but also for the pure pleasure of discovering new worlds.

In this article we offer you 10 classic titles of travel literature that you cannot miss if you are lovers of the genre.

10 famous travel books

From Antiquity to the 19th century, passing through the medieval travelers and the enlightened ones who traveled through Europe during the grand tour… Many have been the men and women who have written down their experiences. Let's see which are 10 of the most famous travel books in literature.

1. Journey to the West in the great Tang dynasty, from Xuanzang

Often, our westernizing vision of the world makes us believe that the desire to explore the unknown and, therefore, travel literature, is the exclusive patrimony of travelers Europeans. Nothing is further from reality. In fact,

during the first centuries of the Middle Ages there were many oriental travelers who left a written memory of their adventures.

This is the case of Xuanzang (602-664), a Chinese Buddhist monk who made a pilgrimage through Asia and captured his experiences in his work. Journey to the West in the great Tang dynasty, written around the year 646 at the express request of the emperor.

In it, Xuanzang recounts her journey through China, Central Asia and India; The document therefore constitutes an extremely valuable testimony of what the society of the different Asian peoples of the time was like.

2. Itinerarium ad loca santa either The Egeria Itinerary

And if the prejudice that "only" Westerners travel still persists, what to say about the issue of traveling women. Most of them have been relegated to oblivion, although, fortunately, she gradually recovers her memory.

This is the case of the nun Egeria, who lived during the 4th century, although the dates of her birth and death cannot be specified. It is known that she was originally from the province of gallaecia Roman (present-day Galicia), and that she must belong to a wealthy Hispano-Roman family.

Around the year 381 part of his gallaecia native to the Holy Land, on a very long three-year pilgrimage trip that she will take him to tour Gaul, northern Italy, Constantinople, Jerusalem and Egypt, among others. He Itinerarium ad loca santa (literally, Itinerary to the holy places), also known as Egeria Itinerary, is the written testimony that he left of his trip; It is written in Vulgar Latin and in it Egeria scrupulously describes both the customs and people of the places she visits as well as her own impressions of her.

3. The book of wonders either Il Milioneby Marco Polo

If there is a traveler that comes to mind when we talk about travel literature, it is Marco Polo. Born into a wealthy family of Venetian merchants, at the age of fifteen he accompanies his father on a journey to the heart of Asia. that will last no less than twenty-three years. During this long journey, Marco will work in the service of Kublai Khan, the emperor of the Mughals, and will tour the exotic and mysterious lands of Mongolia, China and India as an ambassador.

When the traveler finally returned to his native Venice, he was captured by the Genoese and forced to remain in prison for a year. At that time, and in collaboration with another prisoner, Rustichello of Pisa, a well-known writer of romances of chivalry, Marco Polo composed the book that would catapult him to fame: The book of wonders, known by his contemporaries as Il Milione (the million), probably in reference to the amount of fantasies it contains.

Marco Polo's travel book was a brilliant success at the time, and is still considered today the greatest exponent of the medieval travel book written by a European.

4. Rihla. through islamby Ibn Battuta

The Arabs of the Middle Ages were distinguished travelers. In fact, the Muslims knew foreign lands much better than the Europeans themselves, perhaps because of their own expansionist path from the Arabian Peninsula. One of these great travelers was Ibn Battuta, considered the great travel chronicler of medieval Islam.

His impressive journey of more than two decades through the Muslim world, collected in his work Rihla (whose name refers to the travel genre of Arabic literature, and known in Europe as through islam), is one of the great epics of the time.

Born in Tangier in 1304 into a wealthy family, at the age of twenty-two he decided to undertake the obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca; a pilgrimage that will link with an impressive journey through the territories conquered by Islam and beyond: Mecca, the Holy Land, Persia, Central Asia, India, West Africa, China… It is estimated that Ibn Battuta's journey covers no less than 120,000 km, many more than those covered by his (almost) contemporary Marco Polo.

5. The antichità of Romeby Andrea Palladio

Palladio is the son of other times. In 1537, the year in which he accompanies his mentor on a trip through northern Italy, the echoes of the mirabilia medieval are practically non-existent. It is the time of great discoveries and scientific advances; the public no longer wants stories with fantastic overtones, like Marco Polo's, but exact descriptions of places.

In the middle of the 16th century, Andrea Palladio writes some very interesting texts where he details the monuments of classical antiquity in Rome. One of these texts The antichità of Rome, was published in the city of the popes in 1554 and represents a scientific study of the characteristics of these monuments. We are far from the medieval descriptions that, according to Palladio himself, were nothing more than "strange lies". To compose his study, the humanist immersed himself in the work of classic writers such as Plutarch or Tito Livio. These testimonies of Palladio's Roman travels are undoubtedly one of the most perfect examples of the sincere vocation of the Renaissance intellectuals to unravel the truth of the past of the places they visit, far from legends, tales and fantasies.

6. Travel to ItaliaGoethe's

It is without a doubt the most famous travel book when it comes to Italy. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is one of the greatest exponents of German Romanticism, known mainly for his Faust and Werther works. The travel book we are discussing is part of the so-called grand tour, trip obliged for Italy that all young people of good birth had to carry out during the 18th century.

Of course, Goethe is not going to be less. For more than a year, from 1788 to 1789, the writer toured the entire Italian Peninsula, stopping several times in Rome. The fruit of it was Travel to Italia, published in 1816 and which is a compilation of the letters and diaries that Goethe wrote during his Italian journey.

7. Letters from the Turkish embassyby Lady Mary Montagu

In the European eighteenth century two passions coexist: the first, towards an idealized Italy, splendor of antiquity; the second is an indisputable attraction to everything “exotic”. The Ottoman Empire, with its costumes, its palaces and its harems, aroused real fury among Europeans at the time. And if there is a genre that constitutes the common denominator in all this, it is the epistolary genre, the pillar of eighteenth-century literature.

She used Goethe in his Trip to Italy; It was also used by Gallows in his Moroccan Letters, and it will be the genre chosen by Lady Mary Montagu, the intrepid English lady who, hand in hand with her husband, Lord Wortley Montagu, English ambassador, traveled to the distant Constantinople. The letters that Mary wrote from the Turkish capital contain very interesting descriptions of the society and customs of the Ottoman Empire.; in fact, Lady Mary was the first Western woman to be allowed access to the royal harem.

As additional (and extremely important) information, we will say that it was this woman who set the precedent for vaccination against smallpox: on his return from Constantinople, he had his son inoculated, following a practice he had observed during his trip to Istanbul. This led to strong criticism from English society, which did not look favorably on this practice taken from Muslims. However, her story would prove him right. Years later, Edward Jenner, who perfected the system, successfully vaccinated a child and got him immunized.

8. The Nileby Gustave Flaubert

If the 18th century was the century of classical antiquity and the Orient, the 19th century saw an unexpected passion for Ancient Egypt. The origin of this Egyptomania was Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt, during which, by the way, the Rosetta stone was found, which would be crucial to deciphering hieroglyphic writing.

In 1849, the French writer Gustave Flaubert began a tour of the Nile country with the photographer Maxime du Camp.. The trip lasts nine months, during which the two friends are fascinated by the wonders of ancient Egypt. Du Camp takes what would be the first photograph of the Sphinx of Giza, and Flaubert writes his impressions in an essential travel book for any Egypt lover.

9. Trips through Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Arabia, Syria and Turkeyby Ali Bey

His real name was Domingo Badía and he was born in Barcelona in 1767. In 1803, at the request of Manuel Godoy, Prime Minister of Carlos IV, he made his first trip to Morocco, for which he changed his name to Ali Bey and posed as a nobleman of abbasid Under this new identity he toured Egypt, Syria, Türkiye and Arabia, where by the way she managed to enter Mecca, which made him the first non-Muslim Spaniard to enter the sanctuary (The first non-Muslim European had been the Italian Lodovico de Verthema in 1503).

Her texts on her travels were published in 1814 under the title Voyages d'Ali Bey en Afrique et Asie (Ali Bey's trips to Africa and Asia). In them, the traveler describes in detail the zoology, botany, geography, cities and society of the countries Muslims, descriptions that fascinated the European public of the time, thirsty for information about those "mysterious" lands oriental. By the way, Ali Bey passed away in Damascus. Her love for the Muslim East carried to the end.

10. * The days of the Ride-on Ride in Japan *, by Eliza Scidmore

Eliza Scidmore is part of the long list of women reporters (and unknown ones) who left extraordinary contributions throughout the 19th century, the great century of journalism. In Scidmore's case, she was one of the great travel chroniclers of the National Geographic Society.

Born in the United States in 1856, her brother's privileged position made it easy for her to travel to different parts of the world, a fact that aroused her curiosity for unknown lands. Her first travel book, published in 1885, revolved around her stay in Alaska, and it received a remarkable reception from the public.

Fascinated by the ancient Japanese culture, Eliza tried to introduce the cherry plantation in Washingtonwith virtually no success. His trips to Japan gave rise to his book Jin rickshaw days in Japan, which came to light in 1891, a year after he entered the National. For this society he wrote a multitude of articles in which he describes his forays throughout the world: China, India and the island of Java, among many other places.

His love for Japan prompted him to write his only work of fiction, the novel As ordered by The Hague, from 1907, inspired by the Russo-Japanese War. Eliza herself passed away in 1928 and is buried in the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery in Japan. It could not be otherwise.